TNReady Problems Documented in Full Detail in New Audit

The TNReady online student assessment tests had login delays, slow servers, and software bugs, according to an audit Tennessee Comptrollers released Wednesday. As reported, earlier this year Republican Gov. Bill Haslam said TNReady “has had several hiccups” and that criticism of it “was earned.” Auditors, however, went into more detail in their report. “The first signs of trouble began on April 16, 2018 and continued through the end of the month,” auditors said in a press release. “Auditors determined that many of these issues occurred primarily because of Questar Assessment, Inc’s performance and updates to the student assessment system. Auditors also found the Department of Education’s oversight of test administration fell short of expectations.” The performance audit’s nine findings include five issues surrounding TNReady. These findings include: • The department’s lack of sufficient, detailed information on its Work Plan with Questar rendered it less effective as a monitoring tool to ensure Questar met all deadlines. • Questar’s decision to make an unauthorized change to text-to-speech software without formally notifying the department. This change contributed to the online testing disruptions. • Questar’s failure to sufficiently staff customer support, resulting in lengthy call wait times and high rates of abandoned calls. •…

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Education Commissioner McQueen Convenes Testing Assessment Task Force

McQueen

The role of state tests should always be to supplement other feedback loops that teachers, parents, and districts use to get a more complete picture of a student’s development, including classroom performance, report cards, portfolios, performances, and other ways students show their development. State tests are not meant to be the sole driver of instructional decisions. The information from an assessment should provide educators, parents, and students with a better perspective on how the students are succeeding academically compared to their peers across Tennessee.

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Beth Harwell Calls for State Legislative Hearings on TNReady Testing Problems

House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) is calling for state legislative hearings on problems with TNReady scoring. “We have made great strides over the last several years in education, and we must be diligent in ensuring we continue these gains,” Harwell said on Facebook Tuesday. “We know that accountability has been a large part of this improvement. However, the news that nearly 10,000 TNReady tests were scored incorrectly has resulted in educators, parents, and legislators seeking answers. In addition, the amount of testing has also raised questions.” Hawell, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, has asked the House Government Operations Committee to hold the hearings. The scoring issue is the latest in a string of glitches over the past several years with standardized testing in Tennessee public schools. Testing has also come under scrutiny for the amount of time it takes away from instruction, the way student scores are linked to teacher evaluations and for what is viewed as acquiescence to a national large-scale testing apparatus involving for-profit companies selling testing products and services. At the end of this past school year, testing vendor Questar was slow in returning test scores for report cards. Problems with its scanning program are now…

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Tennessee Department of Education Runs Into Another Glitch In Delivering Standardized Test Results

  The Tennessee Department of Education has hit yet another snag in getting spring standardized test results to school districts. Questar, the vendor for TNReady tests, is having problems with its scanning software used to grade paper exams. The state was already having problems with delivering raw scores, partly because some districts missed the deadline to turn in completed tests. As a result, some districts are not using test scores to calculate final grades for report cards. This is the fourth year that the state has had some type of issue with standardized testing. Last year, there were so many problems with the testing itself that the state terminated its contract with Measurement, Inc. and signed a contract with Questar. “We understand the importance of having the raw scores to communicate information to educators, students, and families, and we apologize for the inconvenience our delays have caused TDOE and our district partners in getting this information on the timeline we committed to months ago,” Brad Baumgartner, chief partner officer for Questar, said in a statement. Education commissioner Candice McQueen said in an email to school superintendents on Thursday that nearly all scores for high school EOC exams were available, but that…

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